The
boomerang shaped home above will be covered with fiber
reinforced concrete stucco that achieves water, insect, and
severe weather damage resistance while maintaining its
maintenance-free colorfast stucco beauty. The wall mass
also contributes to significant heating/cooling energy savings.Errata Page for Book Changes

The
garage in the background of this picture, is also dry stacked.
Notice the stylish white stucco wall surface of the garage.

What
is drystacked block...
Your family deserves financial and physical security in their home.
Starting today, you can reach that goal for your family. Dry stacked
block home construction builds for less by using concrete masonry units
(blocks) and a fiber-reinforced Surface Bonding Concrete (SBC) coating.
No high tech gimmics here, just tried and proven methods using convential
materials. This is the most cost effective yet impervious home building
material available. Solid concrete walls work just as well, but concrete
walls are not cost effective due to expensive forms requirements. The
dry stacked walls are just as strong and much simpler for a home owner
builder. Simplicity and strength are the key ingredients to a successful
home owner builder.

Both conventional
homes and passive solar homes are constructed using dry stacked block
techniques due to the reasons stated above. This website demonstrates
the building of a conventional (non passive solar) home. A passive solar
home uses these same drystacked block techniques. http://www.thenaturalhome.com/passivesolar.html,
shows the same dry stacked block technique used in building a passive
solar home design. Their website can assist you with passive solar issues,
and this website can assist you with the details of dry stacked block
construction. You will find our website listed at their "Links"
page.

Conventional
concrete blocks are simply stacked, and then locked into place by a
coating of SBC that is applied to both the inside and outside of the
walls. This
eliminates those unsightly grout lines as seen on most block walls and
also water proofs the walls. This SBC can be tinted to achieve wall
colors other than white or gray.This
wall thermal mass reduces heating/cooling expenses by averaging out
the daily temperature variations. The outside temperature spikes and
plunges are buffered by this block wall mass in conventional homes.
Earth bermed and thermal mass homes often use dry stacked wall construction
because of its convenience. They also fill every block cell with sand
or concrete to improve the thermal mass of the wall. Conventional home
design only fills a vertical cell at 8-foot centers and provides less
thermal mass, but still provides significantly improved thermal mass
over conventional wood stick structures, resulting in lowered heating
and cooling costs.

Additional
wall strength results from a continuous
rebar reinforced concrete bond beam, and vertical rebar reinforced concrete
filled wall cells on 8-foot centers. Thermal
mass homes will fill more of the wall cells. The SBC is typically sprayed
on with a low cost SBC sprayer. You can purchase a sprayer or find plans
to build your own sprayer here. The sprayed
SBC is finish troweled to achieve the desired stucco surface effect.
Unlike normal stucco, this SBC is fiber reinforced for added resistance
to physical damage. Unlike normal stucco, this SBC is water proof, which
eliminates dampness in these draft-free walls.

DryStacked walls
are impervious to rot, insects, moisture and high wind flying
debris. The SBC coating interlocks all the blocks into one integral
wall unit by sandwiching the blocks on both sides with the SBC. DryStacked
walls with the SBC coating prevent dampness because of the SBC waterproofing
properties. Increased hurricane resistance results from roof tie-down
straps that are securely embedded into the concrete bond-beam at the
top of the walls during home construction.

This website
information is based upon tried and proven experience, not hype.